


Bittersweet Homecoming

by Raine_Wynd



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Bisexuality, Canonical Character Death, Consensual Underage Sex, Foul Language, Gen, Grief, Homecoming, Military Backstory, Swearing, Teenage sexual exploration, slightly AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-09
Updated: 2015-05-09
Packaged: 2018-03-29 19:38:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3908092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raine_Wynd/pseuds/Raine_Wynd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After two years in the Army, Yancy comes home to bad news.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bittersweet Homecoming

**Author's Note:**

> I've never been a fan of folks who think that someone on active duty needs to be spared bad news because they can't do anything about it. My mom did it to me while I was in basic training; I heard worse stories from fellow soldiers. This story takes inspiration from that.
> 
> Also, it's my head canon that the Beckets learned to drive at an early age and did so before they were legally able to do so. I also believe they were, as teenagers, the kind of guys who did OK in school but were known to be sexually active and would go to parties, sometimes the kind with alcohol and drugs, but were considered 'nice boys' because they were polite to adults and loyal to their friends and defensive of anyone they thought was being mistreated. :-) That doesn't mean, however, they were 100% clean in their language, especially when talking with each other.
> 
> Beta read by Sam Johnsson. Thanks, amigo!

Yancy wasn’t surprised to know that his teenage brother had driven to pick him up. He’d taught him how, a few weeks before he’d shipped out to basic, with the full expectation that Raleigh would get his learner’s permit at fourteen. Technically speaking, Raleigh was supposed to be accompanied by an adult when driving, but they’d learned that nobody cared as long as they didn’t get into any accidents.

It didn’t take long before Yancy noticed how quiet his brother was on the drive home from the airport. “Everything okay, bro?” Yancy asked. He had fresh discharge papers from the Army, a two-year stint finished and in the books. He was going to take that GI Bill and the money he’d saved up and the training he’d gotten on software analysis and do something awesome. A quiet Raleigh was not something Yancy liked; it meant his little brother had something heavy on his mind.

“I’ll tell you when we get home,” Raleigh said. “How was Atlanta?”

“Hot,” Yancy said. “I was sweating all of the time.”

“Yeah?”

“Not like summer up here, that’s for sure,” Yancy agreed. He was willing to allow himself to be drawn into an innocuous conversation if it meant his brother would feel more comfortable on the drive home. “You work things out with that girl, Irene I think you said her name was?”

“Yeah, but she said her mom thought she was too young to be dating, so we broke up.” Raleigh shrugged. “Hey, I found this band you might like. You want to listen?”

“Sure, turn it up.”

Raleigh pressed the play button, and the sound of modern rock filled the air. The drive between the airport and their house took about forty minutes, as they lived out in Meadow Lakes, a suburb of Anchorage. Traffic was light, and as the scenery passed by, Yancy felt as though he was finally coming home. He couldn’t shake the sense that whatever Raleigh was going to tell him was something he wouldn’t like.

Raleigh was a goddamned puppy at times, full of energy and life, usually babbling away about the newest girl in his life. There was always a girl. When Raleigh had been ten, Yancy had caught him kissing a boy; Raleigh claimed Jake had dared him to do it. Yancy hadn’t cared; he knew his brother wasn’t someone you dared unless you were willing to deal with the consequences. What mattered more was that Raleigh dealt with Jake’s interest gracefully, with no drama, and they’d continued to be friends and eventually best friends. Richard Becket had sat Yancy down when he’d been six and warned him that there would always be someone in their lives who found them pretty and interesting, a lesson he repeated with Raleigh three years later. No meant no; Richard Becket had said. The Becket brothers had wound up in a lot of fights over the years with people who hadn’t had that lesson taught to them so young.

Yancy wasn’t surprised the relationship with Irene hadn’t lasted. Raleigh’s attention span for people was notoriously short. He liked everybody, but not everybody had figured out that meant he was quick to stop liking people who couldn’t keep his interest or who were mean to others. Jake had told Yancy that the people who didn’t get Raleigh amused him. “There’s a set of brains under that blond hair,” he’d told Yancy once. “Same as you, but people underestimate both of you, and you let them.”

Yancy had shrugged. “People will think what they want to think, so why should I care?”

Jake had laughed then. “Maybe you should teach your brother that? Because he’s still nursing a black eye over the last time he got into a fight over that shit.”

“I’ll talk to him,” Yancy had said.

“Hey, have you talked to Jake?” Yancy wondered now.

“His dad got a job down in Seattle and they moved. Jake didn’t want to go, but he’s been getting hassled about coming out. His parents thought maybe since Seattle’s so progressive, it wouldn’t be a big deal.”

“You know he had a big-ass crush on you?”

“Yeah,” Raleigh said. “I, uh, know.”

Yancy shot his brother a look and saw the sheepish, almost defiant expression his face. “You didn’t. Oh my God, Rals, what did you do with Jake?”

“I wanted to know what sex with a guy was like,” Raleigh said defensively. “And I’m fifteen, and I wanted him to be with someone who cared, and who wouldn’t make fun of him.”

“Raleigh!” Yancy said, incredulous, but it was so Raleigh.

“What? It was okay. Don’t get on your high horse, Yancy. I know you fucked a girl when you were twelve. So what if I know what sex with a guy is like? You gonna fight me over it?”

“No, you know I’m not like that. I just hope you didn’t break Jake’s heart, that’s all.”

“He wanted it as a going-away present,” Raleigh said quietly, shooting Yancy a quick look.

Yancy sighed resignedly. He knew how selfless his brother was. It would be like Jake to phrase the request that way, and like Raleigh to accept it. “You were careful?”

“As I would with a girl,” Raleigh said with a nod. Both brothers had been sexually active early in their teenage years, encouraged in part by their father, who’d seen such activity a normal part of growing up as boys. “You find anyone interesting in Atlanta?”

“Lot of girls who liked the uniform more than the guy inside it,” Yancy said with a shrug. “Got boring pretty quick. I saw too many of my fellow soldiers going on out on paydays and blowing all of it in one weekend.”

Raleigh grimaced. “Stupid. What are they going to live on the next two weeks?”

“Payday loans and the generosity of friends,” Yancy said. “If you’re single, the Army pays for your housing on base.”

“Still doesn’t sound smart,” Raleigh said and turned down the road that would lead them to their house.

The house was quiet, and Yancy wondered where their parents were. It was Saturday. By now, Mama should’ve come out of the house, lighting up a cigarette in deference to her own rule about smoking inside. Dad should’ve been one step behind her, grimacing at being in the direct line of her smoke, but they would’ve come out and greeted them.

“Where’s Mama and Dad?” Yancy asked as he got out of the car and unloaded his duffel full of clothes and souvenirs and other personal belongings from the trunk. Practice had him lifting the 30-lb weight as if it was nothing.

Raleigh drew in a deep breath and unlocked the door. “You might want to sit down first,” he told Yancy after they’d stepped into the small living room, and he’d set down his duffel bag.

“Raleigh,” Yancy warned, “quit stalling.”

“Mama died six weeks ago. Lung cancer. She’d been coughing and exhausted, but she wouldn’t go to the doctor. By the time I called 911, they couldn’t do anything for her. She made me swear not to tell you until you got out,” Raleigh said in a rush. “Insurance paid out enough to cover her cremation and she left us the house and the car. I guess she didn’t expect Dad to stick around because as soon as she was dead, he was gone the next morning. I had to figure out how to do everything, who to call, what to do. Thank God the hospital had a nurse who could help me. I couldn’t even afford to buy a marker for her in the cemetery - I couldn’t believe how expensive it was and I was too creeped out to take her ashes home so I didn’t. I’m so glad you’re home. I’m barely keeping up with school and CPS was here yesterday, and I told them you were getting out and -”

Yancy could tell his brother was nearly out of breath. He put his hands on Raleigh’s shoulders. “Breathe. That’s it, in and out. I’m home. We’re going to get through this, okay? You should’ve called me, no matter what Mama said.” Mama had always been melodramatic and needy. She had often made her sons promise impossible promises. Yancy had figured out he couldn’t fulfill half of them when he was nine and had told her so. She’d been taken aback, and then smiled. ‘So much your father’s son,’ she’d told Yancy then. He’d tried to shield Raleigh from that as much as he could, but clearly, she’d taken advantage of his years away.

“What are we gonna do?” Raleigh asked anxiously. “Mama only had $9,000 in the bank account, and it’s half gone between everything I had to pay for. We were behind on all of the utilities.”

“But we’re caught up now?”

Raleigh nodded. “I’ve been careful about how much electricity and gas I use, too, so it shouldn’t be as much this month.”

“What do you want to do?”

Raleigh looked around the 800-square-foot, two-bedroom home. It was scrupulously neat (Mama wouldn’t stand for anything less), but the stress of trying to keep it so was clearly taking its toll on Raleigh. “I don’t want to stay here anymore.”

“Rals, you’re fifteen. That means you‘re supposed to finish high school.”

“Did you hear about the latest kaiju attack?”

Yancy stared at him. “That’s what you want to do? You want to be one of those jaeger pilots?”

Raleigh shrugged uncomfortably. “I can get my GED. Not like I’m going to go to college for free, and that’s about the only way I can pay for it. I don’t have great grades, Yance. I got two B’s but the rest are C’s and...I got a D in biology last semester.”

“How the fuck did you get a D in biology?”

“Mama wouldn’t write a check to cover the lab fee, so I haven’t been able to do any of the labs. She said public school was supposed to be free.”

“And you didn’t talk to the teacher?”

“Mama made me come home right when school ended so I could do the cooking and cleaning. She couldn’t get out of bed, the last few weeks.”

“Where the fuck was Dad?”

Raleigh shifted uncomfortably. “He and Mama had a fight. I think he’s been staying with his new girlfriend or maybe with a friend of his from the plant. I dunno. I talked to him a week ago to ask him if he’d show up when you came home and he said no, I was the man of the house now and not to go looking for a handout from him anymore.”

Yancy blew out a breath. His father was no saint; that had long been clear from the way he’d talked when he thought his wife couldn’t hear. “And Mama made you promise not to tell me anything. That’s why she acted like you weren’t around anytime I called. Did she take your phone?”

Raleigh nodded. “Only time I’ve been on the laptop is when I’m doing homework, and I had to do it in the kitchen where she could see me working.”

Yancy sat down on the old, tattered sofa; his brother mirrored him, looking anxious. Thoughts, plans, consequences, all of it swirled through his head, but the Army had taught him how to look at things logically and solve problems. “All right. First things first: I’m gonna take a shower and get changed out this fucking uniform. You start in on the laundry. Second, we’re going to take inventory of the pantry, and then we’re gonna balance the checkbook. Then, we’re going to cook something because I’m starving, and I know you never eat breakfast. Then we’re going to knock out your homework, and only then, we’re going to figure out how we’re going to get into the Jaeger Academy. Because you’re right, kid, there isn’t anything here for us.”

Raleigh sagged with relief. “Thanks, bro.”

“Don’t thank me yet. I have a feeling we’re gonna need to start doing some training, and you’re nowhere near where I think we’re gonna need to be. Think you can lift my bag and get it to our room?”

Raleigh grinned. “I don’t need to lift it far,” he bragged and proceeded to half-carry, half-drag it to their room.

Yancy smothered a chuckle. It wasn’t going to be easy, and the half-formed plans of going to college were instantly discarded. The important thing was to keep the roof over their heads and Child Protection Services away. Five grand wasn’t going to stretch far, especially since he suspected the mortgage on the house was astronomically high for the size of the place and how far from the city they were. He’d heard his parents arguing about it one night; Dominique wanted to live in Anchorage and be closer to shops. Richard wanted to not have more than a fifteen-minute commute to his job as a seafood processor.

Somehow, Yancy wasn’t surprised by his mother’s death. He’d heard the unmistakable coughing, the way she’d sounded and looked when they’d chatted over Skype. He’d even tried to get her to go to a doctor, but she’d waved him off, claiming it was just a cold, something simple, something that could be cured. In the back of his mind, Yancy had been waiting for this – but it didn’t change that he wanted very much to grieve. _Later_ , he thought, later when his brother was asleep, he’d give in to the urge to cry.

Yancy Becket was twenty years old, and the world had shifted under his feet, but he’d always taken pride in his responsibility as an older brother. Today was no different. He was going to take care of his brother. The truth was: he’d had half an idea to be a jaeger pilot, too. How they were going to get there, he had no idea, but the information was on the Internet, and he'd heard some of his fellow soldiers talking about how the PPDC was especially interested in anyone with military experience. There had to be room for two guys like them: brothers, best friends, and willing to kick ass in a fight.

Still, Yancy allowed himself one moment to grieve for his mother, and for his father, who couldn't be bothered to see how his son was in need of help. Yancy opened his eyes to see Raleigh standing before him, looking unsurprised. "It's just us, bro. Cry and rage if you want to. I already have." Raleigh held his arms open, and Yancy stepped into them and let the tears fall.


End file.
